ONE HEALTH APPROACH: THE NEED OF THE HOUR
- Nithya Quintoil1 and A.Varun2
1Assistant Professor, RIVER, Puducherry
2 Farm Manager, PGRIAS, TANUVAS, Kattupakkam
One Health is an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems. It recognizes the health of humans, domestic and wild animals, plants, and the wider environment (including ecosystems) are closely linked and inter-dependent (One Health High Level Expert Panel, an advisory panel to the One Health, 2021).
One Health is an idea that the health of people is closely connected with the health of animals and environment. One Health is important, by working together, we can achieve the best health for everyone. One Health is an approach that recognizes the health of people is closely related to the health of animals and environment shared. One Health is not new to this world, but it has become more important in recent years. This is because many factors have changed interactions between people, animals, plants and environment.
- Human populations are growing at faster level and expanding into new geographic areas. As a result, more people live in close contact with animals including wild and domestic animals. Increased stocking density of peoples and animals in geographic area increases. Animals play an important role in our lives, it provides nutritional security, livelihood and companionship for the peoples. Close contact with animals and their environments leads to more chance of zoonotic diseases between animals and people.
- Climatic change and land usage is the biggest problem globally. Deforestation and intensive farming practices leads to changes in climate and land usage patterns. Disruptions in environmental conditions and habitats leads to outbreak of new zoonotic diseases in humans and animals.
- International trade is increased between countries. The movement of people, animals and animal products has increased between countries as a result of increased international travel and trade. Because of this, diseases can spread quickly across borders and around the globe.
The above said changes leads to the spread of existing (endemic) and new or emerging zoonotic diseases, which have high potential to spread between people and animals. Globally, millions of people and animals are affected by zoonotic diseases every year. Examples of zoonotic diseases include: Rabies, Salmonellosis, West Nile virus infection, Q Fever (Coxiella burnetii), Anthrax, Brucellosis, Lyme disease, Ebola, etc.,
One Health issues
- One Health issues include zoonotic diseases, antimicrobial resistance, food safety and food security, vector-borne diseases, environmental contamination and other health threats which are commonly shared by people, animals and the environment.
- Antimicrobial resistance and Antibiotic resistant germs are major treat to animals and people. Antimicrobial resistance leads to treatment failure and death among animals and humans.
- Climatic change – high rise in temperature leads to vector-borne diseases (increased mosquito and tick populations)
- Contamination of water leads to outbreak in people and animals
One Health approach
One Health is gaining global attention and it is an effective way to fight health issues at the human-animal-environment interface, including zoonotic diseases. Centre for Disease Control and Prevention uses the One Health approach by involving experts in human, animal, environmental health and other relevant disciplines in monitoring and controlling public health threats and to learn about how diseases spread among people, animals, plants and the environment.
The co-operation between human, animal and environmental health workers will leads to successful public health interventions. Professionals in human health (doctors, nurses, public health practitioners, epidemiologists), animal health (veterinarians, paraprofessionals, agricultural workers), environment (ecologists, wildlife experts) and other areas of expertise need to communicate, collaborate, and coordinate activities their activities.
Illustration of the One Health approach by the OHHLEP
Other relevant players in One Health approach includes law enforcement, policymakers, agriculture, communities, etc. No one person, organization, or sector can address issues at the animal-human-environment interface alone. Hence, it involves application of a coordinated, collaborative, multi-disciplinary and cross-sectoral approach to address potential or existing risks that originate at the animal-human-ecosystems interface.
FAO One Health priorities include: as per https://www.fao.org/one-health/en
- Improving early warning systems on animal and plant pests and diseases, including zoonotic diseases at the human-animal-plant-environment (HAPE) interface
- Strengthening biosecurity for pest and disease management in animals and plants, including zoonotic diseases, pests and invasive alien species management
- Facilitating effective emergency preparedness and response for anticipatory action on and response to food-chain emergencies, food safety issues and other health events at the human, animal, plant and environment interface
- Heightening antimicrobial risk (AMR) management at national, regional and global level by supporting One Health responses to AMR in the food and agriculture sector
- Enhancing One Health systems through strengthening contributions to One Health and biodiversity, and its ecosystem services, environmental health, soil/land, water, food safety and the sustainability of agri-food systems.
One Health Focus Areas
- Zoonotic and emerging infectious diseases
- Pandemic preparedness and response
- One Health emergencies at the human-animal-environment interface
- One Health pan-respiratory disease surveillance
- Global health security and capacity building
- Strengthen One Health coordination in the United States
- Strategic One Health partnerships
- Prevent zoonoses shared between people and pets
ADOPT ONE HEALTH, STOP RABIES: INDIA LAUNCHES NEW NATIONAL ACTION PLAN FOR DOG MEDIATED RABIES ELIMINATION BY 2030
National Action Plan for dog Mediated Rabies Elimination (NAPRE) by 2030 was launched by India for the control of rabies. Rabies is endemic in India and approximately 36% of peoples suffers from human rabies deaths globally which is transmitted by dogs. Rabies can be prevented/managed efficiently by “One Health Approach” which involves inter-sectoral collaboration among animal, human, and environmental health.
- Systematic data collection and compilation
- Co-ordination and data sharing among animal, human and environmental health sectors
- Efficient and effective surveillance
- Sufficiency and availability of post exposure prophylaxis (PEP)
- Increasing vaccine coverage
- Increasing efficacy of vaccination
- Increasing awareness
- Strengthening laboratory capacity
- Promotion of Research activities
Way Forward (Based on “A ‘One Health’ approach that targets people, animals” published in The Hindu on 04/05/2021)
- Consolidating Disease Surveillance: Need to consolidate existing animal health and disease surveillance systems – Information on Network for Animal Productivity and Health and National Animal Disease Reporting System.
- Developing Guidelines: Developing best-practice guidelines for informal market and slaughterhouse operation (e.g., inspections, disease prevalence assessments), and creating mechanisms to operationalise ‘One Health’ at every stage down to the village level
- Holistic Collaboration: One Health initiatives, by their multidisciplinary nature, entail working across ministries and navigating tacit institutional hierarchies and allocating leadership roles. Therefore, One Health consortia requires the cooperation and active engagement of individuals, communities and society are needed.
- Establishing Institutional Mechanism: There are already several cross-cutting efforts operating in India to develop protocols for a database of research into zoonotic diseases. However, there is no single agency or framework that embraces all interdisciplinary sectorial players under a single umbrella to carry forward the ‘One Health’ agenda.
One Health approach benefits
- Prevent outbreaks of zoonotic disease in both people and animals
- Improve food safety and security
- Reduce antimicrobial resistance / antibiotic-resistant infections in human and animal
- Protect global health security
Conclusion
As India battles yet another wave of a deadly zoonotic disease (Covid-19), awareness generation and increased investments toward meeting ‘One Health’ targets is the need of the hour. One side, human being with sound health, at the same time, animal is more related to economic production and livelihood. A sound and sustained climate brings a holistic environment for dispelling health related issues in life and combat one health in one’s life by maintaining its ecosystem.
